Immersive Future Media Technologies: Sensory Experience

Immersive Future Media Technologies: Sensory Experience

Christian Timmerer

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt (AAU) Faculty of Technical Sciences (TEWI) Department of Information Technology (ITEC) Multimedia Communication (MMC) Sensory Experience Lab (SELab)

http://research.timmerer.com http://blog.timmerer.com http://selab.itec.aau.at/mailto:[email protected]

MobiMedia 2011, Cagliari, Italy5th September, 2011

Acknowledgments. This work was supported in part by the European Commission in the context of the NoE INTERMEDIA (NoE 038419), the P2P-Next project (FP7-ICT-216217), the ALICANTE project (FP7-ICT-248652), and the COST Action IC1003 QUALINET.

Christian Timmerer, Alpen-Adria-Universität, Austria 2

Quality of ExperienceFactors impacting Quality of Experience

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T. Ebrahimi, “Quality of Multimedia Experience: Past, Present and Future”, Keynote at ACM Multimedia 2009, Beijing, China, Oct 22, 2010. http://www.slideshare.net/touradj_ebrahimi/qoe

Quality of Experience

(QoE)

DeviceNetwork

Content Format

EnvironmentContent

User Expectation

TaskApplication

Technical Factors

Social andPsychological

Factors

User

Context


Sensory Experience• Consumption of multimedia content may stimulate also other

senses– Vision or hearing– Olfaction, mechanoreception, thermoception, …

• Annotation with metadata providing so-called sensory effects that steer appropriate devices capable of rendering these effects

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… giving her/him the sensation of being part of the particular media

➪ worthwhile, informative user experience


Outline

• Background / Introduction– MPEG-V Media Context and Control featuring Sensory Information

(SEDL+SEV)– Demo/Software/Hardware components: SEVino, SESim, SEMP,

amBX+SDK, and AmbientLib

• Improving the QoE through Sensory Effects Sensory ➪Experience– Motivation towards Sensory Experience– Results from Subjective Tests: Experiment I + II

• Sensory Experience on mobile devices?

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Part One: Background / Introduction

• MPEG-V Media Context and Control• Concept of MPEG-V Sensory Information• Sensory Effect Description Language (SEDL)

and Sensory Effect Vocabulary (SEV)• Demo/Software/Hardware components:

SEVino, SESim, SEMP, amBX+SDK, and AmbientLib

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Introduction to MPEG-V

• MPEG-V: Media Context and Control (ISO/IEC 23005) :== system architecture + associated information representations

• Interoperability between virtual worlds– E.g., digital content provider of a virtual world (serious)

gaming, simulation, DVD• And real world– E.g., sensors, actuators, vision and rendering, robotics

(e.g. for revalidation), (support for) independent living, social and welfare systems, banking, insurance, travel, real estate, rights management

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MPEG-V: Media Context and Control

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System Architecture

Pt. 1: Architecture

Pt. 3: Sensory Information

Pt. 4: Virtual World Object Characteristics

Pt. 2: Control Information

Pt. 6: Common Types and Tools

Pt. 7: Conformance and Reference Software

Pt. 5: Data Formats for Interaction Devices

http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/working_documents.htm#MPEG-V

http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/working_documents.htm%23MPEG-V


Sensory Effect Description Language (SEDL)

• XML Schema-based language for describing sensory effects– Basic building blocks to describe, e.g., light, wind, fog, vibration, scent– MPEG-V Part 3, Sensory Information: Effects, GroupOfEffects– Adopted MPEG-21 DIA tools for adding time information (synchronization)

• Actual effects are not part of SEDL but defined within the Sensory Effect Vocabulary (SEV)– Extensibility: additional effects can be added easily w/o affecting SEDL– Flexibility: each application domain may define its own sensory effects

• Description conforming to SEDL :== Sensory Effect Metadata (SEM)– May be associated to any kind of multimedia content (e.g., movies, music, Web sites,

games)– Steer sensory devices like fans, vibration chairs, lamps, etc. via an appropriate

mediation device

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Sensory Effect Description Language (cont’d)

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SEM ::=[DescriptionMetadata](Declarations|GroupOfEffects| Effect|ReferenceEffect)+

Declarations ::= (GroupOfEffects|Effect|Parameter)+

GroupOfEffects ::= timestamp EffectDefinition EffectDefinition (EffectDefinition)*

Effect ::= timestamp EffectDefinition

EffectDefinition ::= [activate][duration][fade][alt] [priority][intensity][location] [adaptability][xsi:type][si:{pts,…}]


Example

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<sedl:GroupOfEffects si:pts="3240000" duration="100" fade="15" location="urn:mpeg:mpeg-v:01-SI-PositionCS-NS:center:*:front">

<sedl:Effect xsi:type="sev:WindType" intensity="0.0769"/>

<sedl:Effect xsi:type="sev:VibrationType" intensity="0.56"/>

<sedl:Effect xsi:type="sev:LightType" intensity="0.0000077"/>

</sedl:GroupOfEffects>


Demo Setup

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Display

FanFan

Vibration Bar

Subwoofer

Wall-washer / Light

Light Light

Speaker Speaker


Demo Video with Effects

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SEVino, SESim, SEMP, and amBX

amBX (Ambient Experience) system + SDK• Two fan devices, a wrist rumbler, two sound speakers, a

subwoofer, two lights, and a wall washer• Everything controlled by SEM descriptions

except light effectWeb browser plug-in (AmbientLib)• Various browser support, HTML5, Flash

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Annotation Tool: SEVino Simulator: SESimPlayer: SEMP


Part Two:Improving the QoE through Sensory Effects

• Motivation towards Sensory Experience• Results from Subjective Tests– Experiment I: sensory effects a vital tool for

enhancing QoE?– Experiment II: relationship of the QoE to various

video bit-rates

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Introduction (cont’d)• Universal Multimedia Access (UMA)

– Anywhere, anytime, any device + technically feasible– Main focus on devices and network connectivity issues QoS➪

• Universal Multimedia Experience (UME)– Take the user into account QoE➪

• Multimedia Adaptation and Quality Models/Metrics– Single modality (i.e., audio, image, or video only) or a simple combination of two modalities

(i.e., audio and video)• Triple user characterization model

– Sensorial, e.g., sharpness, brightness– Perceptual, e.g., what/where is the content– Emotional, e.g., feeling, sensation

• Ambient Intelligence– Add’l light effects are highly appreciated for both audio and visual content– Calls for a scientific framework to capture, measure, quantify, judge, and explain the user

experience

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F. Pereira, “A triple user characterization model for video adaptation and quality of experience evaluation,” Proc. of the 7th Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, Shanghai, China, October 2005, pp. 1–4.

B. de Ruyter, E. Aarts. “Ambient intelligence: visualizing the future”, Proceedings of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, New York, NY, USA, 2004, pp. 203–208.E. Aarts, B. de Ruyter, “New research perspectives on Ambient Intelligence”, Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments, IOS Press, vol. 1, no. 1, 2009, pp. 5–14.


Experiment I

• Aim: demonstrate that sensory effects is a vital tool for enhancing the user experience depending on the actual genre

• Tools– Sensory Effect Media Player (SEMP)– Test sequences annotated with sensory effects: action

(Rambo 4, Babylon A.D.), news (ZIB Flash), documentary (Earth), commercials (Wo ist Klaus), and sports (Formula 1)

– Double Stimulus Impairment Scale (DSIS) also known as Degradation Category Rating (DCR)• Five-level impairment scale ➪ new five-level enhancement scale

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Experiment I (cont’d)

Test Procedure• Show test sequences in random

order• Two sequences presented twice but

not directly one after the other – test the reliability of the subjects

• First, show reference sequence w/o sensory effects

• Second, the same sequence enriched with sensory effects with a two second break in between

• Finally, subjects to rate the overall opinion of the audio/video resource and sensory effect quality

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Dur (sec) Genre #EffectsRambo 4 58.11 Action 10ZIB Flash 83.04 News 1Babylon A.D. 118.42 Action 28Wo ist Klaus? 59.16 Comm. 16Earth 66 Docu. 24Formula 1 116.2 Sports 43

Test Sequences

5 Big enhancement4 Little enhancement3 Imperceptible2 Annoying1 Very annoying

New Five-Level Enhancement Scale


Experiment I (cont’d)

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Major Findings from Experiment I

• Sensory effects is a vital tool for enhancing the user experience– Action, sports, and documentary genres benefit more from

these additional effects– Rambo 4 and Babylon A.D. are from the same genre, the results

differ slightly– Commercial genre can also profit from the additional effects but

not at the same level as documentary– News genre will not profit from these effects

• Those videos presented twice differ in the results ➪ test method may not have functioned properly

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M. Waltl, C. Timmerer, H. Hellwagner, "Increasing the User Experience of Multimedia Presentations with Sensory Effects", 11th Int’l Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS’10), Desenzano del Garda, Italy, Apr. 2010.


Experiment II• Aim: investigate the relationship of the QoE to various video bit-

rates of multimedia contents annotated with sensory effects.– Subjective quality gap between video resources annotated with and

without sensory effects at different bit-rates

• Tools– Sensory Effect Media Player (SEMP)– Test sequences annotated with sensory effects: action (Babylon A.D.)

and documentary (Earth)– Absolute Category Rating with Hidden Reference (ACR-HR) method

using a five-point discrete scale from excellent to bad– Novel voting device for continuous voting

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with


Experiment II (cont’d)

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Sequence Babylon A.D. EarthDuration 35s 21sResolution 1280 x 544 1280 x 720Motion High LowNr. of Effects W: 7; V: 9 W: 8; V: 1Bit-rates Kbit/s PSNR Kbit/s PSNRLow Quality 2154 38.93 2204 38.11Medium Quality 3112 41.27 3171 40.65High Quality 4044 42.95 4116 42.27Highest Quality 6315 N/A 6701 N/A

Test Sequences Voting Devices

Procedure


Experiment II (cont’d)

MOS vs. PSNR/bit-rate for Babylon A.D. MOS vs. PSNR/bit-rate for Earth.

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Major Findings from Experiment II

• Results confirm the observations from the previous experiment

• MOS of the lowest bit-rate version with sensory effects is (always) higher than the MOS of all higher bit-rate variants without sensory effects

• Sequence enriched with sensory effects is 0.5 MOS points higher on average than without sensory effects

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M. Waltl, C. Timmerer, H. Hellwagner, "Improving the Quality of Multimedia Experience through Sensory Effects", Proc. 2nd Int’l. Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX’10), Trondheim, Norway, Jun. 2010.


Part Three

Sensory Experience on Mobile Devices?

• Sensory effects on traditional mobile devices– Haptic – vibration– Tactile (passive) – position/location, motion/rotation– Light – backlight, ambient– Scent, the Smellophone?

• How about other mobile devices?– E.g., in transportation (bus, train, car, plane)

• Open issues– Tradeoff with battery consumption (optimization

problem)– Applications and subjective quality assessments

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Conclusions

• MPEG-V Overview (ISO/IEC 23005)– Pt. 1: Architecture– Pt. 3: Sensory Information

• Sensory Information and HW/SW components– Sensory Effect Description Language– Sensory Effect Vocabulary– SEVino, SESim, SEMP, and amBX+SDK

• How to improve QoE? Results from experiments so far …➪– … to be continued!– Towards a Utility Model for Sensory Experiences

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Sensory Experience Labhttp://selab.itec.aau.at/

Software and Services

Standardization

Publications

Media

Funding

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Acknowledgments• EC projects for funding this activity

– NoE INTERMEDIA (NoE 038419)• http://intermedia.miralab.ch/

– P2P-Next project (FP7-ICT-216217)• http://www.p2p-next.eu

– ALICANTE project (FP7-ICT-248652)• http://www.ict-alicante.eu

– COST ICT Action IC1003• QUALINET – European Network on Quality

of Experience in Multimedia Systems and Services• http://www.qualinet.eu/

• Markus Waltl for implementing, preparing, conducting, evaluating almost all the experiments

• Benjamin Rainer for implementing the browser plug-in + Web tests• Hermann Hellwagner for his advice and feedback• ISO/IEC MPEG and its participating members for their constructive

feedback during the standardization process2011/09/05


References• Markus Waltl, Christian Timmerer, Hermann Hellwagner, “A Test-Bed for Quality of

Multimedia Experience Evaluation of Sensory Effects”, Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2009), San Diego, USA, July 29-31, 2009.

• C. Timmerer, J. Gelissen, M. Waltl, and H. Hellwagner, “Interfacing with Virtual Worlds”, Proceedings of the NEM Summit 2009, Saint-Malo, France, September 28-30, 2009.

• M. Waltl, Enriching Multimedia with Sensory Effects, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, February, 2010.• M. Waltl, C. Timmerer and H. Hellwagner, “Increasing the User Experience of Multimedia

Presentations with Sensory Effects”, Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS’10), Desenzano del Garda, Italy, April 12-14, 2010.

• C. Timmerer, M. Waltl, and H. Hellwagner, “Are Sensory Effects Ready for the World Wide Web?”, Proceedings of the Workshop on Interoperable Social Multimedia Applications (WISMA 2010), Barcelona, Spain, May 19-20, 2010.

• M. Waltl, C. Timmerer, and H. Hellwagner, “Improving the Quality of Multimedia Experience through Sensory Effects”, Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX2010), Trondheim, Norway, June 21-23, 2010.

• M. Waltl, C. Raffelsberger, C. Timmerer, and H. Hellwagner, “Metadata-based Content Management and Sharing System for Improved User Experience”, Proc. of the 4th InterMedia Open Forum (IMOF 2010), Palma de Mallorca, Spain, September 1, 2010.

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Thank you for your attention

... questions, comments, etc. are welcome …

Ass.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christian TimmererKlagenfurt University, Department of Information Technology (ITEC)

Universitätsstrasse 65-67, A-9020 Klagenfurt, [email protected]

http://research.timmerer.com/Tel: +43/463/2700 3621 Fax: +43/463/2700 3699

© Copyright: Christian Timmerer

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